It Happened One Night
by girl-like-substance
Summary: It's the Box Foundation's annual winter party, and all of the box network admins have flown to Cerulean to get drunk together. But they're rapidly finding that their problems have come along with them – and that a mysterious stranger seems to want to solve them all ... [Written for Canalave Library's annual new year's gift fic exchange, for Minty Electronica.]


**Content warning:** There's quite a bit of drinking, smoking and strong language in this one.

* * *

_zzzeewww_

"Celiooooo, how you _doin'_, boyo?"

Oh god, it's Cassius. How does someone so loud appear so suddenly? Celio feels like he should've heard him coming a mile away, even through the music and the conversation, and yet here he is, popping up at Celio's shoulder as unexpectedly as a dusknoir out of the shadows.

"H-hi," says Celio, trying to smile and wondering if it would be okay if he shrugged off the arm Cassius has just slung around his shoulders. "How's it going, Cassius?"

"Absolute shite," he growls, then blinks and seems to think better of it. "Ah, I can't complain." Big grin, teeth just a little too close to Celio's face. His breath smells far too boozy for how early in the evening it is; Celio's still only a few sips into his first glass of wine. "It's good to see you. See everyone, you know? All together again."

"Yeah." God. Okay. Think of something to say, Celio, it's not that hard. "It's been – I mean actually, we probably haven't all been in one place since the last one of these."

"That long?" Cassius whistles, or at least he tries to; what actually happens is he purses his lips and blows, which is a lot less effective. He doesn't seem to mind, though. "This calls for a celebration," he announces. "A toast! To all of us."

"Uh huh," says Celio, raising his glass feebly. "Your, um, your glass is empty."

"What?" Cassius scowls at it. "Bloody … 'scuse me, Celio, I'm just gonna …"

He disentangles himself – with some difficulty – and stumbles off past a knot of Sinnish admins to the bar. Celio gives him a minute, then quietly bolts for the security of an ornamental yucca near the door.

God, but this is― how is he meant to handle this if he can't even handle Cassius? It's not like they don't know each other. Last time, when they held the party in Lumieuse – well, honestly, the least said about that, the better, but at least Cassius kept his silence. And sent back Celio's things afterwards. Once he'd found them all.

Ugh. He needs a cigarette. Or a stronger drink. Or both.

"Get a grip, Cel," he mutters, taking an anxious sip of his wine. "You just need to talk to Bill. It's not like you haven't done that before."

Unless of course he can handle it himself. Which he can't, or he couldn't anyway, which means he probably can't, and―

Bzzzt.

Oh, thank God: a distraction. Celio whips out his phone and applies himself to the admin team WhatsApp with a feverish determination.

_**Brigette Hamilton:**_ _backstage now, with the world's most generic painting. seriously, look at it, wtf is this thing meant to be?_

And a photo of a white canvas with a twist of colour that looks like it was printed on with laserjet. Celio forces himself to stare at it, to bring the full force of his analytical training to bear on this bland corporate nothing picture, and his thumb is poised to start hammering out what's certain to be a very long and unfunny fake analysis when an unfamiliar voice comes to his ears.

"Hello. I don't believe we've been acquainted."

He blinks and looks up: someone has detached herself from the crowd around the bar and drifted over, champagne flute in hand.

"Uh, hi," says Celio, slipping his phone back into his pocket. "No, sorry. I'm―"

"Celio, of course." The stranger holds out her hand for Celio to shake. She's – what's the word Celio wants? Distinctive, that's it. Almost all the women here have come in evening dresses, but she's wearing a suit that, frankly, puts every other in the room to shame. Is she from the Hoenn team? Hard to say, but she has great eyebrows, and everyone says that the Hoennic have great eyebrows. "I'm―"

"Excuse me!" yells someone, barrelling through the crowd. "Sorry, I'm just – yeah, sorry, excuse―"

It's … Molayne? Celio stares. What on earth has got the most chilled-out man on the planet so het up? He's crashing straight through the middle of the party like there's a houndoom on his tail. Heading for the stairs, it looks like. For some reason.

"―came over with them," finishes the stranger, without looking round. "Anyway, that's enough about me, it's all terribly uninteresting. I'd much rather hear about you. How's everything going over in Sevii? You're distinct from Kanto, is that right?"

Oh, great. All that, and Celio didn't catch her name. Thanks, Molayne. Anyway, he can't bear the thought of admitting he doesn't know her name, so best just go with the flow and ask around later.

"Yeah," he says. His phone buzzes in his pocket – probably Brigette again; she must be bored stiff – but he ignores it. "Sevii is, uh, a protectorate of Kanto? We take all the independence we can get. Which means a separate box network, too. Just having some difficulties getting it all hooked up to the global net."

Difficulties: Celio, two interns and the one actual programmer he was able to hire, trying to do seventeen things at once to hit their roll-out deadline and therefore making no headway with any of them. Celio's plane ride out here the day before yesterday afforded him the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep he's had in months, and it was only five hours.

"Difficulties?" asks the stranger, arching one of those eyebrows.

"Difficulties," confirms Celio. "Lots to do, no resources. The foundation's stretched pretty thin as it is. There isn't much left over for our little branch."

"There was enough for this." The stranger waves her champagne flute at the room: oak panelling, rows of bottles, ice buckets, everyone dressed to the nines in an effort to match their surroundings. She has a point; renting this place can't have come cheap. Or does Bill fund these things himself? With the money the government gave him to stop developing time travel or whatever ridiculous thing it is this time? "I'd think there's something left in the kitty."

"Mm," says Celio, wondering if that's a real saying in whatever her first language is, and, if so, what it might mean. "Well, uh, maybe. I'd just – I know I can do it. We can do it, I mean. The team. I don't need to ask Bill."

The stranger frowns slightly.

"I didn't mention Bill."

Ah, shit.

"Well, uh, you know," Celio stammers, hunting for an excuse and half-wishing that some kindly hitman would put a knife in the side of his neck. "It's like – he's in charge, right? It all goes back to – to him, in the end."

A long pause, pinned against the wall by the stranger's eyes. The party swells behind her; somewhere, someone shrieks, and Celio looks up, startled – but whoever's making the noise is lost in the crowd. Probably fine. Sounds happy, not pained.

"Celio," says the stranger, and his eyes snap back to her in an instant. She didn't look around, it seems. Cool as ice. "Forgive me, but you seem somewhat on edge."

"Well," he begins, intending to disagree, but he can't think of any way to say it that might actually be convincing. "Well, um … maybe."

The stranger smiles softly. It's a nice smile. If that's your kind of thing.

"Can I give you a piece of advice?"

Celio's pretty sure he passed the point where he could avoid receiving this advice about ten minutes ago, so.

"Sure," he says, resigned. "Go ahead."

"Just _ask_," she says. "You're going to give yourself a heart attack before ten o'clock if you don't."

"But …"

But he always does this. Always ends up needing to go back to Bill for help, for guidance, for a mind that can solve all his problems with half an hour and a napkin to scribble notes on. It was like this when they were undergrads. And when they first linked Kanto and Johto. And when Celio realised he was about to take out Sevii's telecoms network with his own incompetence.

And now this, too. Because … because she's right. Because Celio's got a choice between letting this eat him alive or accepting some help and actually enjoying the one night a year when the whole Box Foundation is here in one place.

He could just not ask. And he'd probably manage it, in the end. The question is, how much more would it cost to run things that way? And who is this person who managed to see through him so easily?

"But?" asks the stranger, and Celio shakes his head with a sigh.

"I don't know," he admits. "I think you might be right. I just don't really … know how."

She winks.

"Check your emails," she says. "And―"

"Excuse me." Lanette, looking very elegant in an ocean-coloured gown. Her hair done up like – well, Celio's crap at that sort of thing, he has no idea how to describe it. She looks nothing like she does in the videocalls. "Have you seen Bill?"

"Um, no," admits Celio. "I haven't run into him yet. What about―?"

He turns to the stranger. But there's nobody there.

"Who are you talking to?" asks Lanette.

"I don't know," admits Celio. "I really, really don't know."

She gives him a quizzical look.

"Er … anyway, I've got to find Bill," she says. "Sorry to rush off. Good to see you, by the way."

"And you," says Celio, but his words just bounce off the back of her head as she hurries off through the crowds.

He stands there for a moment, clutching his wine glass and trying to get his bearings. Then he takes his phone out of his pocket, flips past the eleven new messages in the group chat (Brigette, just as he thought), and discovers that someone's sent him a link to a website stuffed with template emails.

Celio looks up. Casts his eyes around the room. Searching for someone who is definitely no longer there.

"Fuck it," he sighs, knocking back the rest of his wine in one gulp. "I'm gonna go get drunk and have a cigar."

_zzzeewww_

This was always going to be kind of scary, but it was never meant to be this difficult.

"… don't get me wrong, I love the kid, but it's nice to _drink_ for once," Molayne's saying, lounging against the wall by the stairs up to the mezzanine. "I guess I'm a terrible cousin."

"Oh, no, I don't think so," replies Bebe automatically, her eyes flicking over to Hayley's. (Hayley's flick back: apologetic, a little ashamed.) "We've all been there. I used to get stuck with my little brother all the time, since I was home coding while everyone else was out."

Something about the way she says it must be wrong. Or maybe Molayne's just sharp; Bebe's always had him down as the kind of guy who looks laid-back but sees right through you. When Celio showed up at the airport after that one party in Lumieuse, Molayne listened to his excuses, nodding along with hooded eyes like he was half-asleep, and whispered in Bebe's ear that he'd put ten dollars on him having just been dropped off by Cassius.

"Hm," he says, the slightest little line appearing between his brows. "Hey, is something up?"

This is it. This is another chance. Bebe steels herself – resists the urge to glance at Hayley – opens her mouth―

"Nah, nothing," she says, with a smile. "Just, uh, it's been a while since I saw him, actually. I was thinking I should call him up sometime."

Molayne raises his eyebrows, totally unconvinced.

"Well, that's a fun topic for a party," he says, finishing his cider. "Don't get too sentimental, you'll get me started. Another drink?"

"No," says Hayley, cutting in with a sudden hand on Bebe's arm. "Actually, could I have a word, Beebs?"

Molayne's eyelids twitch very slightly, and Bebe knows the game is up. Which is fine. That's obviously what they wanted in the first place. Except that now it's all gone wrong and this is nothing like what either of them wanted at all.

Fuck. When did things get so _complicated?_

"Yeah, sure," she says. "See ya, Molly."

He wrinkles his nose a little. It's always impossible to tell if he approves of the nickname or not.

"See ya," he says, as Hayley tugs her away. "Think I'll see if Bill wants a drink."

Around the ornate iron newel post, up the stairs to the mezzanine. Not so many people up here. Some of the Johto team lounging against the railing, swilling martinis around their glasses. Hayley drags her over to the darkest corner, by the door that leads out to the rooftop smoking area, and fixes her with The Look.

"This is going really fucking badly," she says.

Bebe considers it: two lifelong recluses, one rural, one urban, who both recently managed to open up to one another after eight years of friendship and say hi, I've been in love with you for the last forever and a bit. Who decided to finally tell all their friends tonight, the one time they're all physically in the same place, except that so far they've spoken to ten different people and not managed to tell a single one. Not even Brigette, and they didn't even have to actually speak to her.

"Yeah," she agrees. "Can't disagree with you there."

Hayley looks at her for a while. Bebe looks back, sees tired eyes and an unhappy twist to her lip.

She loves it when Hayley looks at her. Makes her insides vibrate like the strings of a cello beneath a practised hand. But right now, she'd give anything for her to just look at something, _anything_, else.

"We're such cowards," sighs Hayley. "Thought you were the direct one?"

"I am. I mean, normally. Just, uh, this is … kind of a lot, you know?"

"Yeah, tell me about it." She kneads her forehead for a moment, then remembers that she's wearing make-up and stops. "Beebs. Babe. What are we gonna do?"

It's a good question. And Bebe would answer, honest, but at that moment someone yells from downstairs and they both lean over the railing to see Molayne barrelling through the crowd down below.

"Is that _Molayne?_"

"Yeah," says Bebe. "I think it is. And, uh, he's … coming up here, I guess?"

He is. For some unfathomable reason, he's sprinting for the stairs like someone's holding his cousin over the mezzanine rail by his ankles.

"Should we say something?" asks Hayley.

"I dunno, he seems pretty bus―"

"Sorry!" he yells, shooting past them with the strands of his bolo tie flying behind him. "I have to―"

And he's gone, straight out the door onto the roof patio. Bebe's kind of curious, but she'd have to move if she wanted to see out there, and now that Molayne's no longer right here, her gaze is drawn irresistibly back to Hayley. Still standing there. Still looking at her.

Bebe looks back again. And the conversation would start up once more and go around in another loop, but at that moment Lanette comes up the stairs, looking somewhat harried.

"Sorry," she says, catching sight of them. "Have you seen Bill anywhere? I can't find him at all."

"Nope," replies Bebe, glad of the distraction. "Haven't seen him at all tonight, actually. Hayley?"

"No, sorry."

Lanette clicks her tongue, annoyed.

"Right," she says. "Okay, that's – thanks, but sorry, I really have to find him …"

She peels away and heads over to another group without waiting for an answer; at the same time, someone comes in from the smoking area and stumbles badly as she tries to pass her.

"Oh, sorry," says Hayley, reaching out to steady her. Switched back to public mode in an instant, as ever. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, thank you." The stranger smiles, adjusts her shoe. "That will teach me to try to glue a heel back on myself, I suppose."

Bebe smiles back, because that's what's expected of her, and the stranger's smile broadens in response. She has amazing eyebrows. Sharp enough to kill. Is she from Hoenn, maybe?

"Bebe, right?" she asks.

"Uh, yeah." How everyone recognises her, Bebe has no idea. She never goes anywhere, and her avatar on the system and all social media is just a picture of her glameow when he fell in the bath and splashed around wailing until she stopped laughing long enough to pick him up. "Don't know if you know―"

"Hayley, of course." The stranger turns to her. "We've met. The Silph thing―"

"The Silph thing, _right_," says Hayley, as if she has the slightest idea what she's talking about. "So you're …"

"Yes," says the stranger, apparently taking her at her word. "That's me. It's been a while, hasn't it? How have you been?"

"Oh," says Hayley, visibly starting to panic in that way that only an extremely solitary person suddenly confronted with someone she doesn't remember can do. "Uh, well, you know. It's been a hell of a year, ain't it?"

"It certainly has." The stranger shakes her head. "Nouveau Gaule _and_ Kalos online, Sevii well on the way as well, every single contract renewed. And maybe that Silph partnership thing, too, if it all works out." She flashes Hayley a smile. "I thought your input was rather good. You had that hideous exec eating out of the palm of your hand."

"Huh?" It's maybe not the most relevant thought right now, but – God, Hayley's cute when she's flustered. "Uh, well, you mean the one with the―"

"―the tie, yes. I mean really, orange paisley? I don't know what he was thinking."

Hayley glances at Bebe, a spark of absolute terror in her eyes.

"Yeah," she says. "Uh, I can't remember, ba― eebs. Beebs. Were you there?"

"Oh, uh – I dunno, maybe?" Definitely not. Bebe talks to other people exactly once a year, at this party where she comes and does more Jager bombs than her tiny Sinnish body can handle and drunkenly begs Celio for cigarettes so he can laugh at her coughing her lungs out. But she's got to help out Hayley somehow. "Yeah, I think maybe I was, I remember seeing …" ―shit shit shit who might have been there― "Lanette?"

A tiny nod from Hayley.

"Yeah, Lanette," she says, emboldened. "I remember talking to her there about. Uh. All that Silph stuff."

There's a long, awkward pause, during which Bebe has plenty of time to regret being such a terrible liar. A few people come up the stairs, heading for the door out onto the roof; a gastly and a drifloon swirl along in their wake, murmuring softly to one another.

The stranger brings her amazing eyebrows together in a puzzled scowl.

"Sorry," she says, "but is there something wrong? I have this horrible feeling I've offended you."

Hayley gives Bebe The Look, tinged now with fresh desperation. And Bebe sighs, and she reaches for her hand, and she takes a deep breath.

"I wasn't at the Sinnoh thing," she mutters, the words slipping reluctantly up out of her throat like rabbits dragged from the burrow. "We're just, uh, lying massively to cover up our awkwardness because we've been here over an hour at this point and we really – you know, it's kind of stupid, we – we haven't been able to tell anyone that – we kind of came here with that as our mission, and …"

Oh god, the look on the stranger's face. She really does know Bebe – knows that she's more usually known for her directness than anything else – and now she's watching her babbling like a fool about absolutely nothing.

Makes her angry. And maybe the anger is what she needs, because Bebe clears her throat and growls:

"We came here intending to tell everyone we're dating now. We're not doing a very good job of it, I'm …"

She trails off, her eye moving to the doorway and the slight figure standing there, half-silhouetted in the yellow glare of the sodium lamp outside.

"… afraid," she finishes. "Uh … hey there, kid."

Amanita stares at her for a moment. Then at Hayley.

"Yeeeaah," says Hayley. Slowly, nervously. "Hi, Ammie."

Amanita shrieks, so loud that heads turn and Bebe's surprised nobody's glass shatters, and then she leaps over to seize both their hands.

"Oh my _god!_" she cries. "That's amazing, I'm so happy for you!"

"Aw," murmurs Hayley. "Um, uh, thanks, Ammie, that's – that's really nice."

"Tell me _everything_," she demands. "How long have you been going out? Is long-distance hard? Most importantly, are you gonna tell Fennel I was smoking?"

And suddenly, just like that, the fear's gone and the old fire rushes in to take its place. She knows. Now Bebe can get on with being the obnoxious joker she really is.

"Two months, sometimes, and not if you pay me."

"Beebs!" cries Hayley. "You're not extorting money from a child."

"I'm not a child," protests Amanita. "I'm just … not exactly an adult. Anyway, that's not the _point_, the point is you two! How many people have you told?"

"Uh, nobody yet. Just you and …"

Bebe looks. But the stranger is gone.

"Hey," she says, scowling. "Hey, where did she go?"

"Where did who go?" asks Amanita. "It's just you two."

Bebe and Hayley share a confused look.

"There was someone here," says Bebe. "This woman, I didn't get her name."

As she speaks, Cassius comes upstairs with Celio, laughing, Scotch sloshing wildly around in two tumblers; they catch sight of the three of them en route to the door and stop, Celio offering an ironic little salute with his glass.

"So this is where the real party is, eh?" asks Cassius. "Can I interest any of you fine people in a cigar? Cuban. Celio's got the good shit."

"Not you, Ammie," adds Celio quickly. "If Fennel finds out, I'm going to wake up in a full-body cast."

"Aw." Amanita pulls a face. "Look, that's not the point anyway. Beebs and Hayley have some news!"

"Oh, yeah?" Cassius turns to them with interest. "What's up?"

This time, there's no hesitation. Bebe squeezes Hayley's hand and feels the love and pride unfurl within her like new leaves stretching out towards the sun.

"Well," she says. "Me and Hayley, we've actually decided to try dating …"

_zzzeewww_

"… and so it's my great pleasure to introduce the brand director of―" Brigette breaks off to scowl at her notes. "Brand director? What does that really _mean?_ And why would they get one in, instead of someone you might actually recognise? Honestly, the whole thing just smacks of desperation."

As do her attempts to distract herself, honestly. She sits back in her chair and spins it lazily around on its pivot, running her eyes over the little room for the fifth time in as many minutes. There's nothing to see. Mirror, generically abstract painting, table with tea and coffee and Cumulo pecking at dust. It's not the worst place she's ever waited backstage, but it's not the best, either.

She scowls at herself in the mirror for a moment. Then she sighs and gets out her phone again.

_t-5 minutes_, she types, thumbing open the group chat. _please spare a thought for me while you're all having fun getting hammered_

Tap. Brigette watches the 'Sent' tick appear, then the 'Delivered'. She keeps watching, but there's no response. Just like for the last fifteen messages, ever since Amanita got bored. At one point it said Bebe and Celio were typing, but clearly something more exciting happened to them, because neither of them ever actually sent anything.

This is all completely fair – the annual Box Foundation party is so much more worthy of attention than this dumb awards show Brigette foolishly committed to introducing – but that's not to say it doesn't sting.

"Gonna be a long night, huh," she sighs. "Hey you, found anything on that table yet?"

Cumulo looks up from his fruitless pecking and coos softly, questioningly.

"Never mind," she says. "C'mere."

He watches her for a moment, then flutters over to her shoulder, shedding puffs of down from his wings.

"Hey, watch it," says Brigette, picking feathers off her dress. "I know it's moulting season and all, but I've got to get up in front of three hundred people tonight."

"Ooo," he coos. "Ooo."

"Couldn't have put it better myself."

He shuffles around a bit, apparently content. It's more than can be said for Brigette, who looks at the painting, then at the coffee table, then – running out of alternatives – back at the coffee again.

God. She doesn't even have it in her to be nervous. She's been heading Bank for two years at this point; she's faced bigger rooms, and in some of them she was pretty much just asking for money. So she's just bored, and lonely, and very much wishing that she'd double-checked the date of this year's party before booking this event.

"I really should've got a PA like Lanette said," she says, reaching up to run a finger along Cumulo's soft little neck. "Hey, how many messages do you think it's reasonable to leave in the chat while we―?"

A knock at the door. Brigette starts, stuffs her phone back into her bag.

"Uh, come in!"

"Thanks," says an unfamiliar voice, and in comes a short woman in a sharp suit, holding an incongruous glass of champagne.

"Oh," says Brigette, staring. "Sorry, I … was expecting someone else."

Madeleine, specifically, who's been stage managing the evening. Not … whoever this is.

"Yes, I get that a lot," says the stranger blandly. "Now then, I understand we don't have much time before you go onstage, so let's get down to it. Once you're done, head out via the side entrance and you'll find a cab waiting on Bolting Street. I've paid the driver in full already. Oh, and don't be alarmed if he takes an indirect route," she adds. "I asked him to pick someone else up on the way to the party."

Okay. What the actual hell is going on here. This is what's passing through Brigette's mind, but somehow all that makes it out of her mouth is:

"The party?"

The stranger sighs the sigh of someone forced unwillingly to treat with small children.

"The _Box Foundation_ party, Brigette," she says. "Keep up, please. You don't seriously want to stay here and watch people you can't stand receive awards that don't matter, do you?"

"Well, no, but …" This is just so― Get your head together, Brigette commands, and scrapes together the presence of mind to stand up. "Look, I don't know who you are, but―"

"I get that a lot too," says the stranger. "Look, I've been over your contract. You're not actually obliged to stay for the whole evening; you just overcharged them in the hope that they'd pick someone else. But as it turns out, you're not very _au fait_ with the going rates for these things, and you were still half as expensive as the next cheapest person. You really should get a PA to handle all this," she adds. "Lanette's quite right."

Brigette stares. How does she know that? Even Brigette didn't know for sure she'd undercharged them, though the speed of their response made her suspect.

"How … who _are_ you?" she asks, unable to think of anything else. "How do you know me?"

"Oh, well, if you must know―"

Another person knocking. This time it really is Madeleine, sticking her head round the door with a stressed look on her face.

"Ms Hamilton? You're on― wait, who are you? How did you get back here?"

"Don't worry, I'm leaving," says the stranger. "Just stopped by to wish Brigette good luck."

"Hey, wait!" calls Brigette, but it's too late: she's already slipped past Madeleine and out of the room. And there's no time now, none at all, because like Madeleine says she's on, and so she tweaks her hair and returns Cumulo to his ball and follows her out down the hall towards the muted roar of the auditorium.

But even as Brigette shuffles her notes and shakes her head at Madeleine's questions about who the hell that was, her mind keeps drifting out towards the other side of town and an open bar tab.

She has a feeling the stranger was probably right about her contract. And even if she doesn't trust her cab, there's no reason Brigette couldn't get one herself.

"All right, then," she mutters, looking up at the gleam of the stage lights ahead. "Let's get this over with."

_zzzeewww_

No one would ever know it to look at him, but Molayne's bricking it right now.

"Well, that's a fun topic for a party," he says, finishing his cider. "Don't get too sentimental, you'll get me started. Another drink?"

It's a bit of a risk offering – Molayne really needs to get back to the search – but he has to keep up the façade, and anyway he's pretty sure that neither Bebe nor Hayley is in any mood for a drink. He hasn't quite figured out what's up with them yet, but _something_ definitely is.

And there, right on cue: Hayley shaking her head, laying a sudden hand on Bebe's arm. It's got a curious kind of energy to it. Not quite something a friend would do.

"No," she says. "Actually, could I have a word, Beebs?"

Ah. Now it makes sense. Well, good for them, honestly; they make a great pair, and it would be hard to imagine either of them content with anyone else, given that they're the two most aggressively solitary women in Sinnoh. Molayne hopes they're very happy together. And also that they don't suddenly get jumped by the monster currently prowling in the shadows before he manages to recapture it.

"Yeah, sure," says Bebe, looking half terrified and half relieved. "See ya, Molly."

Thank the tapus. Time to get back to work.

"See ya," he says, as Hayley tugs her away. "Think I'll see if Bill wants a drink."

He waits a moment, watching them head upstairs – presumably for a quiet relationship-related chat on the mezzanine – then, when he's sure they've forgotten him, turns and sets his empty glass casually down on the bar.

"Can I get you anything?" asks the guy tending bar, with whom Molayne had been having a pleasant and supremely nerdy conversation about rare brandies before he realised his captive had escaped; Molayne shakes his head no and flashes him a lazy kind of smile that forestalls further questions.

All easy enough. Give the impression of moving through life at half a mile an hour and people just chill out to match your pace. Molayne turns, fixes his eyelids at an appropriately sleepy angle, and starts to make another circuit of the room.

It's packed. Great turnout; of course, everyone's had this in their diaries since May, but still, it's no mean feat, getting everyone from every branch across the world all into one place. Ostensibly it's Bill who organises it, though Molayne suspects that means that Lanette does, just using his money. And it's gone well. Music and chatter and drink all flowing as freely as the streams that swell from the Hokulani meltwater, and absolutely nobody aware of the fact that they're currently sharing the room with a vengeful spirit.

Molayne edges past some Hoennic programmers, keeping one eye on the shadows. The creature is almost certainly still there; all the literature indicates they prefer to keep to dark corners. Just a matter of which one.

It's times like this that he regrets putting those resources into hooking up Alola's box network to that archipelago instead of connecting it to the global network. If he'd been able to send the damn thing straight to Oak's lab instead, he wouldn't be in this situation, and he wouldn't have to be wasting his evening stalking round the party looking for some slippery little ghost.

Molayne pauses. Up ahead, near the table where he first realised the pokémon had escaped earlier that evening, a distinctly unsteady-looking Cassius has just cornered Celio. Good to know _someone's_ having a good night at least. He never had Celio down as the type to go wild on a night out, but based on last year's performance, something about the presence of a very drunk Welshman brings him out of his shell.

And look! Right there, just past Celio: that yucca's shadow is definitely moving on its own. Molayne hurries over, swinging his bag down off his shoulder―

"Hey, Molly."

"Bulu, Koko and Lele!" he gasps, jumping half out of his skin. "What the― oh right. Hey, Ammie."

Amanita – eighteen now, fine-featured as a classical statue, under strict orders from Fennel to have no more than two drinks tonight at the absolute most – grins at him from behind what he suspects is her fourth rum and Coke.

"Nice bolo tie," she says. It's what she always says when she sees him. Apparently bolo ties are uncool, but who knows more about fashion, a hip Unovan teenager or an Alolan programmer who's starting to give in to the impulse to lie about his age? (That's a rhetorical question. He knows the answer.)

"Thanks," he says, scrabbling around desperately for his composure and finding only the usual response. "It's my second-favourite."

She raises her eyebrows.

"Whatcha doing?" she asks.

"Oh, nothing. Looking for someone."

"Ooh." She takes a sip of her drink. "Would it, by any chance, be some kind of pokémon that warps between the shadows?"

Molayne winces, darts in close to shush her.

"Yeah, okay, tell everyone, why don't you?" he hisses, keeping one eye looking past her, at the shadow. "Look, this creature is, you know. So illegal. Anyone finds out it's here―"

"So tell me about it, Molly! I'm _all_ ears. Like, I've been messaging Brigette and her griping about a problem she caused herself is kinda starting to grate, so, y'know, anything to liven things up."

"Sure, just – over here, okay?"

He might as well tell her; there's no point trying to hide anything. Somehow Molayne always ends up playing childminder, and he's spent enough time dissuading Amanita from making stupid decisions over the years to know that she's too sharp to deceive once she's got a whiff of the truth.

"It's from Samson Oak," he whispers, resisting the urge to look around guiltily. Play it cool: no one knows, and no one is going to know. "He asked me to―"

"Is that the hot one or the smart one?"

He gives her a look.

"Seriously?"

She gives him a look right back, all wide-eyed innocence.

"Fine, fine, the hot one," he sighs. "One of his contacts caught a marshadow." That gets her: wide-eyed again, out of shock this time. "Maybe _the_ marshadow; I don't know if there's more than one. He wanted to get it to the other Oak here in Kanto for proper study before he releases it – he's got this contact in Goldenrod, I think, some special ghost-type expert – but Alola's network isn't global yet, and we both figured it would be bad news if any Leagues or governments got their hands on it. Soffy and I came up with a machine that hides poké ball signatures from scanners, so …"

"Wait wait wait." Amanita holds up a hand. "You smuggled it out in your hand luggage?"

"Yeah."

"And brought it _here?_"

"Hey, look, I came straight from the airport. I figured it could wait till to― hang on, where'd it go?"

The shadow twitches, slides oozily across the wall―

"There!" cries Amanita. "That way!"

"Keep your voice down!"

He doesn't run; that's suspicious. He just walks fast, excuse me-ing his way past Cassius and Celio as they head to the bar; Amanita hurries on ahead with her drink, slipping through the crowd with the ease of someone small and young. Passage around to the toilets just ahead. There's the creature now – a dark smear on the wainscot, sliding down the passage in someone's shadow―

"Oh no," breathes Molayne, looking at the fire exit. "No, no, no, don't you _dare_―"

It dares. The shadow hesitates for a moment – wobbles – slides under the door and out into the night.

"Come on!" cries Amanita, launching herself at the release bar and sending the door swinging wildly open into the alley running down the side of the hotel. "It's not alarmed!"

"How did you know that?" asks Molayne, following her out.

"I didn't," she admits. "Lucky, huh?"

Molayne sighs.

"I really don't envy your sister."

"Yeah, and I don't envy your cousin, but you don't hear me whining about it. See anything?"

Molayne casts his gaze around: bins, black bags, old boxes, a thin sliver of street through which he can see a taxi pulling up on the street outside. Everything suffused with the soft yellow glow of the sodium lamps above the door, the shadows pooling blackly everywhere he looks.

"It could be anywhere," he says despairingly. "There's shadows running right the way out to the street – it's basically got the keys to the whole city till sunrise."

"But it took forever to leave the room," counters Amanita. "I think it's nervous. Too scared to cut and run."

She might be onto something there. All the legends say marshadow are – is? – surprisingly timid; being transplanted halfway across the world is probably pretty stressful for it.

"Maybe," he says. So where …"

A long pause, each of them intent on scanning the shadows around the bins for any sign of movement. Out on the street, the taxi door slams and someone walks over to the front door with a ringing clop-clop of heels on pavement; Molayne half-hears a familiar voice drifting after the heels without really recognising it or parsing the words:

"… don't worry about that, these things are always crowded – I'll get you to the bathroom and you can fix your make-up before …"

"There!" cries Molayne, pointing: something shifting beneath the pile of flattened boxes. "There― oh, seriously?"

"Apparently." Amanita's eyes follow the shadow, bolting up the brickwork like the ghost of a spider. "Guess there's only one thing for it, huh? Hold my drink, Molly."

"What are you―? Don't even think about it."

Molayne slaps Amanita's glass down on a bin and grabs her by the shoulder, dragging her back down as she prepares to shin up the drainpipe.

"Molly―!"

"Ammie, you're drunk. You know what happens when you climb when you're drunk?"

"It's more exciting?"

"No, I have to take you to hospital, then Fennel finds out and they have to bury me in a matchbox." He propels her back towards the door, glancing up: there's the marshadow, still en route to the roof. "I saw a way onto the roof earlier."

"Okay, okay," says Amanita, wriggling free. "Hey, where'd it go?"

Another glance up. No shadows on the wall.

Up on the smoking area, a glass shatters.

"Oh, fuck my entire life," groans Molayne, and breaks into a run.

Back inside. No attempt at subtlety now; Molayne sprints down the hall and hits a solid wall of music and conversation and drunk coders. But there's nothing else for it: he takes a breath and keeps on going, crashing into people left and right, spilling drinks and muttering apologies and oh tapus preserve him he just trod on a nidorina's paw and the poor thing is screaming and fluffing up all her poison spines and everyone is staring, yes, he's aware, but all he's got is a snatched _I'm sorry_ and then he's past and shoving people out of his way so he can get up the stairs and round and out―

―was Amanita following him?

Molayne skids to a halt by the outdoor heater, just as Amanita emerges over the edge of the roof and drags herself up on the railing.

"Ammie?"

She swears. And starts. And her hands leave the railing―

―and Molayne flings himself towards the edge―

"Gosh. You really should be more careful."

Molayne stares. He's almost entirely certain that there was no one else out here a moment ago, but he must have been wrong, because there's now an elegant Hoennic woman by the edge, her hands wound tight round Amanita's wrists.

"Up you get," she says, helping her over the railing. "I'd ask what you were doing, but I suspect I already know." She holds out a poké ball, green and black plastic glinting in the lamplight. "Is this yours? There was a little – I don't know, some sort of a gremlin. It popped up a moment ago, holding this ball. I thought it might be stealing it, so I grabbed it, but I appear to have ended up recalling it."

It's like the moment when the runner's high fades and all your muscles suddenly realise you were tricking them into work: Molayne sags, so overcome by relief that it's all he can do to stagger over, and takes the dusk ball in a shaky hand. The other arm goes firmly around Amanita's shoulders.

"Thank you," he says, in between ragged breaths. Amanita hasn't thrown off his arm yet, which is probably some sort of record. Molayne could swear he can feel her heart pulsing in her chest, even harder and faster than his. "That was … yeah. Thanks."

The stranger smiles.

"Oh, not to worry," she says. "I'm just glad nobody was hurt. Or at least nobody but my drink, anyway."

Molayne follows her gaze to see bits of champagne flute in the middle of a spreading stain on the decking.

"I'm sorry," he says. "Um – this is asking a lot, I'm aware, but, uh, if anyone asks …"

"Could I keep quiet?"

He nods.

"I don't see why not." The stranger shrugs. "I'm sure I'm not out to ruin anyone's evening. Quite the opposite, in fact. Are you both all right?"

Molayne glances at Amanita, who nods silently.

"Excellent," says the stranger. "I'll go and see if I can get someone to help with that glass, then."

She smiles again and heads back inside, leaving the two of them alone with the hum of the heater and the rumble of distant traffic.

A second passes. Then another.

"Molly," says Amanita, her voice quiet.

"Yeah?"

"You're not gonna tell Fennel about this, are you?"

He laughs, startled and relieved. She's okay. She really must be okay.

"If I did, she'd string me up by my stupid bolo tie," he says, nudging her gently, and she laughs back.

"Yeah," she agrees. "She would. But, um, I'd talk to her on your behalf. So maybe she'd cut you down again."

"I appreciate it, Ammie." He squeezes her shoulders briefly and lets her go. "Go on, go inside. And no more acrobatics, okay?"

"Promise." A brief pause. "Are you coming in?"

"In a minute," he says. "I, uh … I need to check that ball."

She nods understandingly and slips away. Near the door, she pauses, and for a moment she looks back – and then she smiles shyly and heads back inside.

Molayne sits down heavily at the nearest table, head in one hand and the ball gripped tight in the other. He feels strange – sick and weak and kind of shivery, the way he did when he heard Sophocles scream from the other room and rushed in to see him laid out flat on the floor, his hair standing on end from the electric shock. Amanita could have …

He breathes out, looks up. Some night bird flaps away over the rooftops; down in the street, a few late cars growl back and forth. Out here, the party is strangely muted. Even the odd squeal of delight barely even seems to make it out the door.

It would have been his fault. But it didn't happen. He's going to have to find that woman and thank her properly, get her name, but it didn't happen, and he even got the marshadow secured again, too. He'll slip out in a bit and put it on Bill's private server, just to be sure; nobody will find it there, and he'd like to see it try to escape that. And it didn't happen. It didn't happen.

"… ah, I'm made up for 'em, I really am."

"Yeah, I know. You said that already."

Cassius and Celio, coming out with matching tumblers of whisky. Molayne blinks. How long has he been sitting here? It feels cold all of a sudden.

"Hey, Molly!" calls Cassius cheerfully. "What was all that earlier? You really that desperate for a cigarette?"

Molayne tries to smile.

"Ah, nothing really," he tells him. "Just needed some air."

"Sorry, then," says Celio, politely pretending to believe him. "We're kinda here to pollute it."

"No no, go right ahead. It's the smoking area, right? Kinda what it's here for."

"'Preciate it," Cassius says, swaying slightly. "We're breakin' out the Cubans. Expectin' some pretty swish company, so I figure we should be ready to greet 'em in style."

"You're welcome to join us," adds Celio. "Uh – no pressure, though. I'm pretty sure you don't smoke?"

Molayne doesn't, no. But hell, he needs to settle his nerves. And he could do a lot worse than lounging around in the crisp night air with a couple of good friends.

"You know what?" he says. "Sure. What the hell."

After all, he thinks, as Cassius whoops and Celio gets out his cigar cutter. It's probably going to take the marshadow at _least_ another hour to break out of that ball again.

_zzzeewww_

This is literally the worst fucking night of Cassius' entire fucking life. And he'll drink to that.

Actually, he's been drinking to it for the past forty-five minutes. He is, if the truth be told, somewhat pissed. Monumentally pissed, you might say. Like it's 2010 all over again and he's an angry kid whose only ambition is to wake up tomorrow on the bathroom floor with a hole in his head where last night used to be.

He picks up his glass and turns around to scan the room, feeling his head spin pleasantly as he moves. Gotta be someone around worth bothering, here among all the nerds. (Cassius is adamant that that doesn't include him; he's still cool, and if he has to get himself properly fucked up to prove it then he damn well will.) Bill, maybe? That guy from the Johto team who's also called Bill? No, he hasn't seen either of them all night. There's Lanette, making her rounds like a nervous clockwork toy; there's Molayne, nursing a cider and chatting up Bebe and that rancher chick whose name Cassius can never remember. But no Bill. Or Bill, for that matter.

But – there's Celio. Looking pale and wrung-out, like he hasn't slept in weeks. Nervous wreck if ever Cassius saw one.

Well, he fixed that last year, and he can fix it again now. Cassius grins, takes an unsteady gulp of his drink, and slouches off towards his good time.

"Celiooooo, how you _doin'_, boyo?"

Celio jumps so hard he almost spills his drink. Poor lamb. He seriously needs to let loose, doesn't he? Well, no worries: Cassius is here and he is ready to tear some shit _up_.

"H-hi," he says. "How's it going, Cassius?"

Absolute shite, honestly. Vi is probably never gonna speak to him again – nine amazing months, burnt to ash in twenty minutes – and he can't even really be mad about it; Cassius has nobody to blame but himself. Because he's still cool. Because he's still the guy Bill pulled off the bathroom floor and offered a job.

Wait, did he say some of that out loud?

"Ah, I can't complain," he says, just in case he did. Nice big grin. That'll help, right? "It's good to see you." Too forward? Probably. "See everyone, you know? All together again."

Brilliant. Cassius is a bloody conversational _grandmaster_, if he does say so himself.

"Yeah," says Celio, with a fixed smile. "It's been – I mean actually, we probably haven't all been in one place since the last one of these."

"That long?" Cassius whistles, although if he's honest he might be too pissed to make it work; he ends up just sort of blowing vigorously. No matter. The only solution is more alcohol. "This calls for a celebration," he says, squeezing Cassius around the shoulders. "A toast! To all of us."

Celio raises his glass. That's the spirit! Or not spirit, it's wine, but – wait, this is too good a pun to stay in Cassius' head. He opens his mouth, but Celio's already talking:

"Uh huh. Your, um, your glass is empty."

"What?" How the hell did that happen? It was full only a minute ago. "Bloody … 'scuse me, Celio, I'm just gonna …"

He lets Celio go and heads back to the bar, narrowly avoiding dropping his glass on some bald guy in a bad jacket en route. One top-up later – who's paying for all this, the Foundation or Bill? Cassius is unclear, but it's not him, and that's the important thing – he turns around and finds that he's somehow lost Celio.

"What the …?"

Was he always behind that yucca? Maybe he was; Cassius will admit that his spatial awareness is not quite at its best right now. Which is probably why, on his way back over to Celio, he manages to bump into someone hard enough to spill his drink.

"Whoa," he says, blinking and stepping back with whisky dripping off his fingers. "Sorry, didn't see you there. You all right?"

She smiles. Hell of a smile, actually. Cassius grins back at her, and with the merest pang of regret watches Celio sail straight out of his head.

"I'm fine," she says. "I think you only spilled it on yourself."

He laughs, even though his hand has started to sting with the alcohol soaking into the splits in his knuckles. (It's fine. He only punched a wall, not anything that he might regret later.)

"Ah, ain't the first time," he says. "Won't be the last." A pause. "I'm Cassius," he says. "Don't know if you've heard of me? I run the show over in Kalos."

The stranger nods, amused. Like she's saying of course, everyone knows that.

"It's very nice to meet you," she tells him. What's that accent? Hoennic? It would go with the eyebrows. "I've heard so much. Everyone seems to have a Cassius Jenkins story."

"Well, maybe you'll come out of this with one, too." A wink would be too much. He gives her one anyway. "What branch you from?"

"Oh, I go where I'm needed. Shall we move?" she adds, as someone edges past them towards the bar. "I think we're in the way."

Get in! Maybe Cassius doesn't need Celio to help him turn this night around after all. He takes a celebratory sip – okay, a swig – and lets his grin broaden out with the heat of the alcohol and the buzz of a beautiful person smiling at him.

"Lead on, Macduff," he says, mostly nonsensically but you know, and follows her to a spot at the other end of the bar. Things are a bit quieter here, except for Magali from the Kalos team, who's cooing loudly over someone's carbink; Cassius feels like he can hear his body better, feel his blood and his thoughts pulsing through him with each throb of his drunken heart.

"So," says the stranger, sipping her drink. Champagne. Classy. Cassius has always admired class, despite claiming to hate it; Bill has it (and Vi), but he himself will never have so much as a scrap. "I hear you and Bill go way back."

"Oh yeah," he says, relaxing into the old familiar story. "Like I – well, when I was seventeen, I'd had enough of bouncin' between Mum in Lumiose and Dad in Penarth, so I fucked off to Galar. Up in Wyndon. Bill was there for work, back when he was tryin' to convince them to buy into the network. The first time, you know?"

The stranger nods.

"That one fell through, didn't it? Macro Cosmos thought they could develop their own network in-house."

"Yeah." Cassius lifts his glass to his lips, but somehow it's empty. Never mind, he'll refill it in a moment, right after he finishes the story. "But they don't have Bill, do they, so they came crawlin' back in the end. Corporate bastards." Where was he? "Uh, anyway, so Bill was in town, he went out for a drink – he used to do that back then – and we hit it off. Gave me the job a week later."

This is the edited version. People say Cassius is interesting, but in truth they don't want to hear the details. The pasty-faced, bloodshot-eyed, waking-up-with-a-crust-of-vomit-down-your-face details. And hey, this woman is extremely attractive, and he's pretty sure he's not welcome in his hotel room any more, so Cassius is going to spare her those.

Besides, it's irrelevant; he only drinks in moderation now. Except, you know, when he doesn't.

"He must have been very impressed with your skills," she says, a hint of a question in her voice.

Cassius laughs.

"No, I can't bloody code," he lies, eager to keep up the image he's selling her. "I'm just a good manager, is all. My team in Camphrier do all the difficult shit."

"Really," says the stranger. "Not at all?"

"No." He went on a course. Bill had done him the courtesy of calling the ambulance, and being there when he woke up; it seemed only fair that Cassius try to be worth the trust he seemed to place in him. And sure, it did turn out that Bill was genuinely being nice and not trying to flirt, which was a shame because he had _amazing_ hair back then and Cassius really got his hopes up, but still. "I'm stupid as hell," he says. "Guessin' you ain't, if you're some jet-settin' type who goes round solvin' our problems."

The stranger looks at him from beneath those elegant brows. Around them, the party ebbs and flows, a great beautiful mass of noise and booze and gorgeous people that seems to match the tide of alcohol surging through his veins.

"I'm not going to sleep with you, Cassius," she says, her mouth half-cocked in an amused smile. "I'm not _that_ desperate for a Cassius Jenkins story."

He'd say it's like being punched, but actually he'd sort of prefer that right now. Cassius reels, just a little, then he sets his glass down on the bar a bit too hard and says, "Right, right."

Maybe he just looks that pathetic, because the stranger's face softens. In a kind sort of way, yes, but also one completely devoid of eroticism.

"Don't you have a girlfriend?" she asks.

"No, I have a partner," he snaps, although he knows it isn't her fault if someone used the wrong word, and maybe not even the someone's, either, given that it might have been filtered through any number of languages along the way. "Vi is …"

He means to say, nonbinary. He means to say, sick of my bullshit. He means to say, gone. He means to say, somewhere out there in the chilly Cerulean night, carried away on the wings of their anger after that row.

He doesn't say anything. He keeps not saying it for a long while, until the stranger sighs and puts a hand on his arm.

"What happened?" she asks.

"We fought," he says simply. "Don't even remember what about. They ain't comin'."

"And what, getting drunk and hitting on women is going to help that?"

Cassius shoots her a look.

"I was gonna hit on a man first, _actually_," he says bitterly. "And it's not like I was gonna cheat, I just …" He waves a hand in a gesture that even he doesn't properly understand. "You know."

"Oh, believe me, I do _not_." The stranger takes her hand away. Gives him a look every bit as hard as the one he just gave her. "Have you called Vi?"

"No. Don't think they'd―"

"Oh, for the love of …" She shakes her head. "Just call them, Cassius. You want to apologise, so apologise."

"It's not that simple," he begins, but he's not actually sure that it isn't, and when she rolls her eyes up towards the mezzanine he becomes even less so.

"I didn't say it was simple," she says. "I said you should apologise. I really don't know why men have to be so dramatic about these things."

"What's that supposed to―?"

"Just. Call. Them."

"Who even are you?" he asks, the whisky in him starting to get annoyed. "You never said your name. What the fuck is―?"

"Hey, look," she says, lifting his phone to her face. "Seven missed calls. And five messages."

"Hey, give that― wait, what did you say?"

He snatches it off her, the whisky changing its tune in an instant, and pounds in the unlock code with stumbling fingers. Yes. Seven missed calls from Vi. And messages. And―

"I gotta go," he says, the stranger evaporating from his mind in an instant. "I need to …"

He trails off, his phone already at his ear, and pushes through the crowd towards the exit.

"Vi? Vi?"

"Cass―at yo―"

"I can't hear you, I'm – hang on, I'm goin' outside―"

"―ssius, I―ry―"

"Just a sec – all right, boyo, get outta my way – Vi!"

Out into the crisp, dark night, the noise of the party receding abruptly into the background and leaving him feeling light, unburdened, like a hot air balloon just unhitched from its mooring post.

"Cassius!" says Vi, their voice thin and desperate. "This is so stupid!"

"I know!" he replies, switching language to Kaloise to match them. "I don't even know what we were fightin' about."

"No, nor do I." They sigh. "Can we―?"

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, course, I'd love … I'm sorry. I'm a fuckin' idiot."

"Yes. Completely. But, uh, so am I."

A brief pause. Cassius leans against the wall by the door, and right now the cold brickwork against his back seems like the greatest comfort in the world.

Is it time to get into it? No. No, he should leave it till tomorrow: tonight is not a night to work through these things.

"D'you wanna meet Celio and have a cigar?" he asks, tentatively.

"Celio, Celio … that's the nerdy twink, right?"

Cassius scowls.

"Is that what I called him?"

"That's what you called him, sweetheart."

"Then yeah," he says, smiling despite himself. "That's him."

"Well, that sounds very nice," says Vi. "I'm on my way."

"D'you know where it is?"

"No," they admit. "I would've come and tried to find you if I did. But it's the weirdest thing. A taxi pulled up about five minutes ago and this woman Brigette―"

"What? Ain't she at that corporate awards thing?"

"She was," says Vi. "Look, I don't know, everything is _really_ weird tonight. I guess she recognised me from my picture or something, but she offered me a lift. Be there in fifteen."

What a night. Something shady's going on here, Cassius is sure of it; that weird stranger, this suspiciously convenient taxi – it all adds up to some picture, he can tell, just not one that he can see yet. But it's just like the row: something to leave for tomorrow, for the quiet time after the sun has risen and the hangovers started to ebb.

"Great," says Cassius, the relief setting in like an ache in his bones. "Just … fuckin' great."

"I guess someone out there likes us."

"_I_ like us. I like _you_."

"Love you too, sweetheart," says Vi. "I guess two idiots like us deserve each other, huh? I'll be there soon."

"Can't wait," says Cassius, his dark, pickled heart stuttering in his chest. "I can't bloody wait."

_zzzeewww_

"There you are!"

Bill starts and turns around.

"Oh," he says mildly. "Hello, Lanette."

"Don't you _hello_ me," she says, marching over to him and glaring. "Where have you been? I've been looking everywhere. And why are you hiding out here in the women's toilets?"

"Ah. Right, well, it's not like it seems, it's for science―"

"I'm going to stop you right there, Bill, because that makes it sound _much_ worse."

He winces.

"All right, yes, I can see how it sounds that way. But, ah, it's actually quite interesting. Do you remember when I invented time travel?"

Oh, for the love of― nope. Be patient, Lanette commands herself. He's clearly in one of those moods.

"Yes, and then you tried to hook it into the box network," she says. "And then the Johtonian government paid you to stop because it was an insane idea with no benefit to anyone whatsoever."

"Exactly!" He beams at her. "So! I was tinkering with the time capsule―"

Time machine, thinks Lanette. But she says nothing; they've had this argument about the name before, and it doesn't get them anywhere.

"―and I noticed a strange eruption of temporal distortions all around the hotel tonight. I've just managed to track them down to this." He indicates a champagne flute, abandoned by some careless partygoer on the edge of the sink. "Look at these readings! It's practically buzzing with all the tachyon activity. I'm sure if I can just analyse it, I can figure out what the root of all this―"

"Bill," interrupts Lanette, unable to bear it any more. "Do you have any idea what's been happening tonight? Any idea at all?"

He pauses in the middle of holding out the time machine's screen for her to read, and hallelujah, it looks like she's finally got through to him.

"No …?"

"Well," she says, not even bothering to hide the edge in her voice, "Cassius has passed out at the bar, Celio's had a panic attack and gone home, Bebe and Hayley have disappeared, Molayne's taken Ammie to hospital with a broken leg―"

"Um, hang on, what―"

"―_and_," she says, glaring him back into silence and brandishing her hurt hand, "on my way over here, I got bitten by some kind of weird shadow goblin."

Bill opens his mouth. Thinks about it for a moment. And closes it again.

"Yes," says Lanette. "Exactly. And I know, Bill, I _know_ that maybe this champagne glass is scientifically interesting, but I would really, really have appreciated not being left to deal with all this myself."

"Yes, of course," he says. "I'm sorry. Is Amanita okay? Are you?"

"I'm fine, but I don't know about her."

"Right." Bill glances at his time machine again. It looks like he's refined it a bit since Lanette last saw it; all the cathodes and wiring have somehow been crammed into the casing from a tablet computer. "Um … you hang onto this, then. I don't need the distraction."

Lanette feels herself soften a little at that. It's hard to stay mad at Bill. He's infuriating, yes; he abandons what he's doing to pursue outlandish and frankly unnecessary new inventions at a moment's notice; he doesn't seem to know that at some point you need to stop breeding eevee and start getting rid of them. But he's still Bill. Still kind, still honest. Still her friend, and still the closest thing to a partner her aro heart will ever accept.

"Thank you," she says. "Really. Any other inventions I should know about?"

"Oh. Yes, actually." He peels a little tacky dot off the side of his neck and slots it into what looks like an elaborate wristwatch. "Do you remember last year? It came to the speech and half the room couldn't see or hear. So I rigged up this voice analysis module I built last summer to feed into a hologram emitter. I was going to use it to project a magnification of myself while I spoke."

Honestly, just a mike would have worked fine. But Lanette supposes that if all you have is a science-shaped hammer, every problem looks like an invention-shaped nail.

"Right," she says, taking the emitter. "Thanks, Bill."

"Not at all." He gives her a smile. "We can sort this out. Shall we go?"

"Yes. Or …" Wait. Wait just one minute. Lanette could … no, it wouldn't work. Or would it? "Actually, you go ahead," she says. "I just – I need a moment. It's been quite a night."

"Yes, of course," he says, patting her arm in that awkward way he does when confronted with a reminder that Lanette's resources are not, in fact, as infinite as she likes to pretend. "I'll, ah … well, I'll see what I can do. Make up for being such a poor host."

She nods wearily, her exhaustion completely unfeigned, and watches him go.

Okay. Stand up straight: there, not so hard. And now … now the stupid idea.

Lanette's reflection stares at her from the mirror over the sink, looking vaguely accusatory. Are you really going to do this, it seems to ask. And Lanette is forced to admit that it seems like she actually is.

She stands there for a moment, trying to glare herself into action. Then she takes a breath and taps a few lines of code into the time machine, and―

No. She can't face it. They'll recognise her, and Bill will figure it out. Unless … oh, _unless_ …

Lanette sticks the microphone to the side of her neck and clicks the emitter into place around her wrist. A little fiddling with the settings – scale the projection down – route the audio output through a modulator – map it onto her body …

It hums into life, cloaking her and the time machine in a wash of glimmering photons. And now, when Lanette glances at the mirror again – someone else looks back.

Oh god. The scary thing is, this might actually work.

She picks up the glass of champagne, trying to calm her nerves, and lifts it in an ironic little toast. She means it to be ironic, but partway through the movement it starts to feel sincere.

"L'chaim," says Lanette to the stranger in the mirror. And, as the glass touches her lips, they both disappear with a―

_zzzeewww_


End file.
